Summer in the tomato field

It wasn't the vacation she was hoping for, but it's one she has remembered for a long time.

from the August 27, 2007 edition

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I didn't – and don't – dislike tomatoes, but they were so ever present that year that never to eat another would still not feel like a loss.

When I started eighth grade that fall, it was a relief not to be asked in English class to write about "What I did on my summer vacation." But in art class, Mr. P. passed out white sheets of 11-by-17-inch schoolroom art paper and boxes of crayons and asked us to draw what we did on our summer vacation.

Draw?

My mind flashed to my two siblings and me scattered among plants in the hot sun, partially filled baskets of tomatoes nearby.

What had I done in the summer? Read under the big oak tree at the end of our lot? Explored in the undeveloped town forest at the end of our dead-end street? Ridden my bike up and down the hill? Played falling-down-laughing badminton in the road with multiple birdies, no net, no score, and no light when we kept on after sunset? Picked tomatoes?

While other students busy with crayons depicted what I imagined were fancy adventures, considering the "rich" town we lived in, I was feeling the sweaty itch and "tasting" the smell of pawing over tomato plants.

Mr. P. walked around the room. Time was running out.

Finally, I took a brown crayon and made streaks for soil. With green I made row after row of little branchy marks.

I colored tiny red blotches on the green. With black, I made tiny stick figures standing in the brown, leaning over the red and green.

I was so late finishing that I had to walk my picture up to Mr. P. He held it, looking at it. Seconds – which seemed like minutes – ticked by on the big wall clock. I thought I might be shrinking, my heart sinking further and further into my ever-more-tiny self.

Finally, he said, without looking up, "I like what you've done. It's honest."

My breath caught. If he had touched my shoulder, I would have fallen over.

Over the years I've learned that Mr. P. was stating an important quality in art. Standing before him on that day in eighth grade, though, what I heard him saying to me was: "It is perfectly OK that on your summer vacation you picked tomatoes."

And so it was.

We picked plenty more tomatoes before we grew up and left home, but the sweetest were the ones I drew after the summer of Daddy's 700 tomato plants.

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